Amateur Aviator Loses Engine On Way Home From Antarctica

The good news is that 49-year old Gus McLeod is okay. The bad news: He'll be shipping his experimental aircraft home from Argentina in a box.

McLeod, of Laytonsville (MD), was trying a polar circumnavigation of the world when he was forced to give up his attempt after repeated attempts to cross the South Pole failed. McLeod left College Park (MD) on December 29th, hoping to fly over both poles -- a 28,000 mile trek. McLeod was attempting to become the first pilot to fly across the top and bottom of the world.

The American pilot gave up his attempt last week after two attempts to reach the South Pole. Both ended when he encountered life-threatening icing conditions.

Spokesman Bruce Fries tells ANN McLeod took off from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Saturday. But about 80 miles north of the capital, his engine "suddenly sputtered and stopped at six thousand feet," Fries said. McLeod tried to air-start the engine, but couldn't.

"He had to glide in," Fries said in a Saturday night telephone interview. "He found a pasture, but clipped some bushes and damaged the landing gear." Fries said he got a call from McLeod on his satellite phone at about 11:00 am EST Saturday, an hour after the incident. Fries said McLeod told him he was uninjured in the forced landing.

Compounding McLeod's problems was the fact that he doesn't speak Spanish and no one at the crash site spoke English.

While Fries described the damage to McLeod's Firefly as minor, he said the Maryland aviator will most likely have to ship the Firefly, modified by Korean Aerospace, home in crates. Fries said it was very unlikely that McLeod would try to repair the aircraft there in Argentina.

"I imagine he'll be down there for a few days arranging to ship the aircraft home," Fries said.

And so ends the year's fourth attempt at a South Pole crossing -- none of which succeeded. As ANN reported in December, Australian when Australian pilot Jon Johanson flew his RV-4 over the South Pole on a flight from New Zealand to Argentina. But he didn't have the fuel to make it all the way. Instead of landing in South America, Johanson landed at the joint US-New Zealand base in Antarctica, touching off an international incident between those countries and his native land. Seems the folks at McMurdo-Scott didn't want to give Johanson the fuel he needed to either finish his flight or return to New Zealand.

But another adventurer whose South Pole Crossing was aborted because of weather, came to Johanson's rescue. Briton Polly Vacher had stocked fuel at the McMurdo-Scott base for her own flight. But after giving up because of bad weather and (ironically) not enough fuel, Vacher donated her avgas to Johanson.

A week after the Johanson issue was resolved, another polar expedition was halted by misfortune -- this time, the crash of a Bell 407 in Antarctica.

Jennifer Murray and Colin Bodill were hospitalized in the Chilean city of Punta Arenas after their Bell 407 went down on the northern section of the Ronne Ice Shelf in Antarctica.

Colin suffered a fracture to the lumbar 1 vertebrae, which required an operation.

The crash came one-third of the way through Jennifer and Colin’s attempt to break a world record by flying around the world pole to pole in a helicopter. The Polar First Challenge team still intends to submit a claim for the speed record for flying from New York to the South Pole in a helicopter.

FMI: www.gusmcleod.com